Are You Paralyzed or Progressing?

How do you feel about that question? Many people, including me, have gone through periods of feeling absolutely paralyzed due to conditions in our world that seem to be out of our control. When we allow issues to become monumental in our lives we can feel frozen, unable to do even the simplest of daily chores.

That’s a horrible way to live. It’s indicative of seeing ourselves as helpless victims of circumstance. We may believe we are justified in feeling that way, as we can surmise that we have done everything possible to stop something from happening. Yet still, here we are, with life presenting itself in ways we thought not possible.

To move through these emotions and beyond we must recognize we where are in consciousness. Nurse practitioner Marcia Upton, creator of the NaturallySlim eating program, says we only have four emotions: mad, sad, glad and scared. When considering all our emotions with just these four words we find ourselves without the drama we so willingly add to our lives, particularly in the politically-motivated times in which we live.

It’s drama that creates the energy to spend more time in our upset than in working toward a satisfactory result. When we describe our emotions as “incensed,” “inconsolable,” “ecstatic,” or “terrified” instead of mad, sad, glad and scared we open up a whole new level of drama. Is that a bad thing? No. As a professional writer I love to use the plethora of words we enjoy in the English language.

But as a sociologist and counselor I also acknowledge that we can become far more effective in our own lives by losing the drama and getting down to the business of changing our undesirable circumstances and thereby enjoying our blessings.

We must move beyond the outrage, the indignation, the shock and, yes, even the elation, to progress forward into lives that matter. It’s by losing the drama that we become more effective in changing our thinking, which in turn causes conditions to change not only for us but for those around us.

There are plenty of issues out there that bring up our emotions of sad, mad, glad and scared. I’m sure you can think of several without much difficulty. The question is whether we will let the actions of others paralyze us with those emotions, or whether we will use those feelings to change the world in which we live.